


Red Rook

by hopebliss



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Abstract, Alternate Universe, Fairy Tale Retellings, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 15:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14571972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopebliss/pseuds/hopebliss
Summary: Once upon a time, the Red Rook breathes water, air and fire with the great wolf, a gift in their hand and a friend at their destination.





	Red Rook

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr with a tense change, please be aware that there are spoilers for the end of Jacob's final mission!

Once upon a time, in the slanting, pine-covered hills of the Whitetail Mountains, a little Rook packs a basket of fresh goods and treats. They pack everything that they would need for a walk: sturdy boots for the loose earth, tinder and flint, a thick red cloak that had been given to them by their family (made by the family, blessed by the family and when the little Rook wore it, they thought they felt blessed too.)

To be blessed is to be protected and the little Rook set off on their journey with their red cloak and their boots and their basket. They walk in time to the beating heart of the forest, to the wayward lapping of the streams. They walk under the sun, they dodge the rain under thick branches, they spread their tinder and their flint on the floor of a cave and watch the fire as it blossoms.

The night falls, rather than creeps in. Colour bleeds from the sky. The little Rook pulls their cloak around them tighter, fingers catching themselves fumbling for a moment, indecisive of whether to bundle underneath thick red or to press against the flames.

In that moment, the wolves outside begin to howl.

_____________________________

 

It is a wolf -- singular, not plural -- that finds them on the second day.

He is a monolith walking. The little Rook watches, limbs rooted still as they glimpse sunset fur through the maze of twigs and thick trunks. The wolf circles three times before approaching, its sheer width parting the coiling nests of sticks and clumped muds of the wilderness. The wolf measures them with bright blue eyes; the little Rook thought of ice that could cut, dagger-sharp.

“What is your purpose here?” The wolf asks with neither a kind or unkind expression. Meditated neutrality that looks at home on a canine face.

“I am going to visit someone.” The little Rook says.

A snout presses against their basket, the goods jostling. “You are taking something to them?”

“Yes.” The little Rook peers down at the carefully wrapped treats, “I’m bringing them gifts.”

A huff from the great sunset wolf, an amused breath against the little Rook’s tightening knuckles.

“You’ll be lost in the forest at this rate.” There is something odd about the wolf’s speech, words rolling in that maw that rumble like rocks, that plume like smoke. “There are three roads to cross. I will take you there. The forest eats the weak.”

The wolf begins to walk. A long stride, but quiet pads against the forest floor. He is far enough away to nearly lose sight of him before the little Rook could gather the splinters of their voice.

“Am I weak?”

Ice that cuts. The wolf’s ears flatten.

“You are _slow._ ”

The little Rook falls into line with his march. One, two, three.

 

_____________________________

 

The first road is, in fact, a river.

As broad and as wild as the wolf, the little Rook thinks, cupping their hands around their eyes to see if they could see the end of its stretch.

“There are no bridges.” They say, and the wolf snorts while testing his paw in the raging waters.

“There are no bridges.” He confirms, “Because the strong must _swim._ ”

To the little Rook’s surprise -- and the surprise is, in itself, a surprise, because the little Rook does not believe themselves to be well-acquainted enough with this beast to be wrong in their assumptions -- the wolf does not swim first. He waits and watches them with those blue eyes before his teeth are bared in grim amusement.

“To be strong,” The growl courses across their skin, unearthing their very bones, “Would be to go _first._ ”

The little Rook swallows, and they nod because they want to be strong, and they want to please this wolf. It’s an innate feeling, burrowing and consuming. They lift the basket over their head and wade into the surge.

Immediately the river grabs them, whips its grasp around their legs and threatens to pull them down. Pressure almost folds their spine backwards, mouth gasping for dregs of air before the inevitable grip drags them under. Noise turns to crushing, to a swelling, too-full echo --

And then there are teeth digging into their collar.

The little Rook is tugged upwards. They heave as the wolf dragged them through the current, arms aching as they still held the basket upright (and they allow themselves _that_ commendation. No, big wolf, they did not drop their gifts.) The wolf swims easily, wrenching them upwards onto the muddy bank.

Winded, the little Rook twists onto their side, ribs expanding to the point where they seem to want to strain free of their very chest. A hand reaches out towards the wolf’s dampened fur.

A paw crashes down on their wrist before they can even blink.

The wolf watches.

The little Rook smiles. Their head still spins around and around and around.

“What big eyes you have.”

A sharp laugh from the great wolf, unkind and as cold as the river water.

_“All the better to see you with.”_

 

_____________________________

 

The second road is a cliff reaching towards the heavens. A colossal thing, marred with hand holds and sharp cracks in the rock, hewn out by countless climbers over time.

The wolf breathes out a story to the little Rook on their way here, a story about families and generations, about people who had arrived in the mountains without a purpose, without any friends to visit. They simply drifted until the trees and the stone spoke to them, until the wolves chased them, until their bones turned to steel and their blood to iron.

The little Rook shivers and grips their red cloak.

“Did the wolves ever catch them?”

“Yes.” The beast hums. “The ones that were weak.”

The wolf rounds their body and nudges them with a snout to their back.

“Go on. Climb.”

The little Rook slings their basket over one shoulder and reaches up, finding the first place where the rock gave away and began to climb. The stone stretches them until their arms scream and their shoulders burn with slipstream fire. Fingers claw at loose edges, nails blunting in turn. One, two, three.

It hurts. It hurts. And, almost as if dispensing mercy, the cliff let them go.

The world upends. Stomach lurching, the little Rook could only see the ground - but they did not fall. The red cloak cuts into their neck. A breath stolen in change for the warmth blooming against the back of their scalp, and they realise the wolf has caught them again. With a snappish turn of his neck, they are thrown upwards and onto the flat of the clifftop.

Not a particularly graceful landing, but the little Rook is glad to be at the top, glad that the wolf and his sun-blighted fur crawls up beside them with little trouble. They reach out for him again, and again his paw presses down against their wrist. Heavy, and it _hurts_ , and the little Rook gasps out a protest, fingers curling upwards to touch the back of his leg.

This close, they realise, there are patches missing. Great scars unfold across the length of the wolf’s body.

The wolf snarls in their ear.

“What big _hands_ you have.”

And perhaps it is the pain, perhaps it is placating, because the great wolf is _strong_ , and the little Rook wheezes out a sob.

“A-all the better to touch you with.”

  


_____________________________

 

The third and last road is fire.

It arrives, suddenly, in the first line of trees, they come across after the cliff. An inferno to shake your bones, crumbling wood into ash. The flames move quickly, with fervour, devouring and rife with gluttony.

“We’re nearing the end.” Says the wolf beside them, stare reflecting gold and amber, raging red and black. “You must go through it.”

_Through it._ Through the churning, wrathful red. Through the roar of cracking and kindling devastation. _Be strong, little Rook._

“Remember your purpose.”

“Yes.” The little Rook says and runs forward.

Time only allows them a few seconds before their clothes start to singe, before smoke curl into their nostrils and their legs -- tired and aching after the river and the cliff -- having to react on instinct to the branches falling from the sky. Leaves smash with them against the ground, disappearing in the flurry of an instant.

And the little Rook keeps running.

And the wolf runs beside them. In the split seconds of clarity, as the world crumbles down on them both, the little Rook can’t help noticing that he seems pleased.

They reach out a hand, fingers coiling into the thicker layers of fur at his neck. They choke on the fumes and they run, still, in time with his great sides. And when they break through to the clearing on the other side, where the fire stops shortly, as if God whispered _no_ , they stagger down onto their knees.

The little Rook coughs and the great wolf rounds on them. They blink, and all they could see is blue. That blue that can slice, can sever the very-making of them.

His snout presses against their ashen-forehead, sniffing out at the wayward embers in their hair, across the shoulders of their red cape. A tongue, rough, large, sweeps up the side of their cheek.

“Excellent.” Hums the great wolf, and the little Rook is shaken, can feel a burn against their mouth, and their hands reach up to the great beast’s neck.

“My,” they whisper in the clearing, “what a big mouth you have.”

And the wolf simply smiles. His teeth reflect the coiling inferno behind them. Without pause, he eats the little Rook whole.

 

_____________________________

 

Once upon a time, there is a cabin.

“Are you leaving now?” The little Rook asks the great wolf as they ready themselves to enter, red cloak pulled tight, basket swinging languidly at their side. At the edge of their gaze, they swear the world seems to be burning, still; locked in tumbling, churning fire.

“That depends if you come out.”

“If I-?” The little Rook blinks and stares into the basket, “I have to go give these to someone.”

“ _Someone.”_

“A friend.” The little Rook confirms, “Do you want to come with me?”

The great wolf snorts, “No.”

And then he says. “You must go in alone.”

And _then_ he says: “ _Only you_.”

 

And the little Rook turns and strides forward. They enter the cabin with their basket in their hands and smile at their waiting friend, listening to his relief and a dry joke of greeting. Something about the forest, something about the unhinging jaws of wolves, judges of men and little Rooks alike.

And the little Rook laughs and reaches into the basket for their gift and gives it gladly to Eli Palmer.

His skull splits into two.

“What.” Says the little Rook.

“What.” They say again, as their cloak becomes heavier, as it mottles against their shoulders and back.

_“What.”_ They say again amongst the screams and shouts, the gun pressing to the square of their chest, the echo of protests and curses. _What have you done?!_

It is when the despair heightens, reaches its peak that the little Rook runs out of the cabin, their cloak dripping behind them, basket discarded and their breathing harshly stalling in their throat, awaiting the order to inhale, _exhale._ They cry out for the great wolf, for cutting blue eyes, for the edges of his teeth. They cry out and they feel the answer, jaw in between their shoulders, colliding with the dark.

 

_____________________________

 

Once upon a time, there is a cage and a music box just beyond the rusty bars. Split-second instinct dictates that Rook scramble for it, hand outstretched, barely reaching and grazing the side before a boot collides with their wrist, embedding it into unforgiving ground.

Once upon a time, not a wolf, but a man grabs them by the collar and lifts them to unsteady feet. Not a wolf, but a man, with steady blue eyes that cut and cut and _cut._

Not a wolf, but a man, a man with scar-pocketed skin, a man with sunset hair that hums his amusement.

“Only me?” The little Rook says.

_“Only you.”_

  
  
  
  



End file.
